"MY, WHAT BIG TEETH YOU HAVE..."

The story of “Little Red Riding Hood” originated as a European fairy tale written by the French author Charles Perrault, and was later modified by The Brothers Grimm, among others. In reality, the story is more than a little dark and disturbing, and was unabashedly created as a cautionary tale of the consequences awaiting those who would ignore obvious signs of danger. Riding Hood is named after the scarlet hooded cape she wore, and certainly ‘Red’ had many wonderful characteristics, which ironically were also the very faults that ultimately (at least in Perrault’s original version) led to her final undoing. Red Riding Hood’s faults? She loved and was loved unconditionally: Her mother and grandmother lavished her with love and gifts and apparently doted on her, even gifting the girl with her eponymous red cover. This doting might have had the unintended result of Red’s apparent inability to recognize that the world outside her home and village was not as safe as the place she left. She was Naïve: Even after being warned by her mother that the woods were dangerous, and instructed to stay ‘strictly on the path,’ Red skipped off with a basket of food for her ailing grandmother, blissfully unaware of the danger that lurked all around her. She saw the best in everyone, and discounted the danger signs: As Red skipped toward Grandma’s house, she was stalked by the “Big, Bad Wolf,” who followed her from behind the camouflage of the trees. When he ultimately approached the little girl and asked where she was going, instead of recoiling at the sight of a wolf, Red innocently told him the truth, having no clue the evil acts the Wolf intended to perpetrate with that information. She refused to attribute evil motives to others, because she could not fathom the evil: The Wolf enticed the innocent child to pick flowers for her grandmother in what seemed to be a loving suggestion. In reality, it was to delay the child so that prior to her arrival at grandma’s, he would have eaten the woman and devised an ambush for Red. What could be wrong with picking flowers for grandma? As a result of the success of the Wolf’s deception, he got to grandma’s house ahead of Red and pretended to be her granddaughter. Then when grandma opened the door, the Wolf swallowed her whole, and set up the snare for the innocent girl. When the innocent Red arrived, she noticed that grandma looked somehow different.“What a deep voice you have! And what big eyes you have!” She observed. “Goodness,” she later exclaimed, “What big hands and teeth you have!” She accepted the ridiculous lies uttered to cover her observations, “The better to see you with…” And it was at that point that the Wolf leapt out of bed and swallowed Red, as he had her grandmother. In Perrault’s tale, the story ends there. The little girl is done in by her naïveté, optimism, goodness, and simple innocence. In the Grimm version, as well as French and traditional German versions, an alternate ending softens the blow for the reader, providing a lumberjack or a hunter to come to the rescue and cut open the wolf, releasing Riding Hood and her grandmother. Perrault’s story seems more authentic, however. It is ironic that after the original tale was written, others would want to soften the terrible consequences of evil people and dilute the very message of evil that the original writer aimed to warn against. Perrault must have turned in his grave. The uniquely European tale of Little Red Riding Hood, though originally penned in 1697 by Charles Perrault, is neither obsolete nor dated. In fact, it is as modern and relevant as tomorrow’s newspaper. It is currently being retold in the case of Amanda Knox, a modern day Red Riding Hood. On November 2, 2007, a naïve, idealistic and innocent American girl made a tragic mistake when she unexpectedly encountered a wolf on the trail, far from her own village. Instead of realizing the danger of her situation and how far she was from home, she remained where she was, even at the pleading of her mother to leave. This allowed the Wolves time to set a trap. Instead of recognizing that the prosecutor and police she dealt with were Wolves intent on devouring her, she remained in ‘the woods,’ confident that she was helping honorable people.

Amanda was pretty, well-raised, polite, courteous and compassionate. These qualities were exploited as vulnerabilities by the prosecutor, Giuliano Mignini, himself once sentenced to prison for malfeasance. The Wolves took the information she gave them and used it to hurt others and swallow her whole. The people she was trying to help turned on her, and in one of the greatest travesties of justice in the modern world, they took Amanda’s words, twisted them, then created or “found” flawed, formulated and false evidence to convict her and her boyfriend of the murder of her best friend in Italy. A murder that all evidence proves was committed by a burglar well-known to the prosecutor. In the original tale by Perrault, there was no rescue for the innocent little girl. The story ended when the evil wolf devoured her. Later, Continental and British versions of the story ended with the rescue of the poor girl at the last second. We are soon to see which ending of Amanda’s European tragedy we will see from Italy. Why did Amanda not recognize the danger? For the same reason Red Riding Hood didn't recognize the Wolf. Evil often masquerades as good. Wolves don’t always show their ‘big teeth’ and ‘big eyes.’ Frequently, they present with soft words, warm smiles, and feigned concern. And who are most vulnerable to this ruse? Ironically, those among us that are the most innocent. How tragically ironic that innocence itself is used to force the mask of guilt on blameless people.

Charles Perrault wrote his stories less as entertainment than as cautionary tales. To ensure that no doubt was left regarding a story’s meaning, he explained them in detail. Of “Le Petit Chaperon Rouge,” known to us today as “Little Red Riding Hood,” Perrault explained as if reading from our headlines today:

“From this story one learns that children, especially young lasses; pretty, courteous and well-bred, do very wrong to listen to strangers, And it is not an unheard thing if the Wolf is thereby provided with his dinner. I say Wolf, for all wolves are not of the same sort; there is one kind with an amenable disposition – neither noisy, nor hateful, nor angry, but tame, obliging and gentle, following the young maids in the streets, even into their homes. Alas! Who does not know that these gentle wolves are of all such creatures the most dangerous!

At Long Last, Ms. Coulter, have You No Sense of Decency?

This is a difficult article to write. It’s kind of like being a cop and finding out that the burglar you’re looking for is your mom.

You see, I’m a lifelong Republican. I tell you this not because I want to pick a political fight, argue ideology, make you like me, or certainly make you dislike me. I tell you this because I am having an identity crisis. For years, you see, I watched Fox News, and for a while I even listened to Rush. I thought Ann Coulter was irreverent, a little over-the-top, but generally right, though I occasionally winced at her statements.

I was a career FBI Agent, the son of an FBI Agent. I was a SWAT team-member, a certified sniper, an undercover agent, and a helicopter pilot. I followed terrorism investigations overseas into Pakistan and Indonesia. I have (and wear) American flag lapel pins. I own guns. I haven’t voted for a Democrat for president since….well, ever. I am a member of the National Rifle Association, and I am an NRA certified Law Enforcement Firearms Instructor. I do not buy carbon credits. I have never even sat in a Suburu. My current car has 300 unapologetic horsepower. I love animals but enjoy a good steak.

I consider myself a Christian. I believe God loves me in spite of my weaknesses and failures, not because of their absence. I depend on God daily to teach me, to give me guidance, and to shape me into a person who cares more about others than I do myself. I am not there yet, by the way, but that’s not an excuse not to keep trying.

And now, to my amazement, I’ve just found out that I’m a “Liberal.”

This comes as a terrific surprise to me, but if Ann Coulter says it, it must be true, as she’s never wrong. In fact, not only am I a liberal, but according to her, I’m suffering from a “psychological disorder.” According to her, I’m also “demonic”because I “intentionally defend the guilty and impugn the innocent,”I “side with barbarians,” because “a fair and just system of law challenges [my] hegemony as a “judge of the universe.” As you may understand, this has come as quite a shock to me. How did this happen? How could I have been so wrong about myself?

Apparently, this radical change happened when I discovered that an innocent person had been convicted of murder and I tried to do something about it. Maybe it happened to you, too. (If so, don’t tell Ann Coulter.)

In an article on September 7, 2011, mean-spiritedly entitled “Amanda Knox: The New Mumia,” Coulter uses lists of long-discredited, flat-earth-society “facts” to postulate the guilt of Amanda Knox, the American College student railroaded for murder in Italy in 2007. Coulter initially branded Knox as guilty several years ago, based on Knox’s alleged purchase of bleach on the morning after the murder of her roommate. This type of American press savagery is partially why Knox is still in prison four years later. Because this alleged bleach purchase never happened: No bleach was ever found, no records of any such purchase exist, the checkout employee flatly stated that Knox was not in the store that morning; and regardless, the crime scene that Knox is wrongly accused of causing was not cleaned with bleach. I knew these things about the bleach at the time Coulter said them, but I simply chalked it up to the fact that investigating violent crime wasn’t a hobby for me. But I was still disappointed, because Coulter and I shared some conservative political views and I trusted her. (Now that I realize I am a ‘liberal’ I am not sure how this could have been possible.)

After Coulter’s unfounded bleach “fact” was shown to be apocryphal, she fell into a long silence about the case. I naturally assumed that she had learned that the facts on which she based her conclusion were wrong, and that she therefore changed her opinion and was weighing how to best help this innocent girl. Instead, Coulter fired back this week with a list of even more incorrect, discredited facts; an article simply breathtaking in its naiveté. The problem with this isn’t simply that people more knowledgeable about the crime than her (lawyers, FBI agents, judges, scientists, DNA experts, senators, FBI profilers, almost a dozen members of the Italian Parliament, Pulitzer-prize winning journalists and New York Times Best-Selling authors) have all come to the conclusion that Knox is innocent. The problem is that Coulter is quoting “facts” discredited over a year ago. The other problem is that that if you disagree with her, you are evil.

Coulter alleges in her 9/7 masterwork; “Now liberals are howling that the DNA evidence was "contaminated,….” For the readers’ edification, here is a short list of just some of the ‘liberals’ who have spoken out in favor of Amanda Knox’s innocence: Megyn Kelly, Shepard Smith of Fox News, Bill O’Reilly, Geraldo Rivera, and Donald Trump, who recently attended a tree-hugging, “pinko” rally held by a group calling themselves the “Tea Party.” In fact, a recent meeting between me and another “liberal” who believes Knox was railroaded was held at the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California, because both of us are inexplicable admirers of the man.

In her magnificently naïve article of the 7th, Coulter quotes more than a dozen “facts,” all of which she says proves Knox’s guilt, and all of which have been thoroughly deconstructed. If not, the fact that the DNA evidence was false would not have any bearing on the case, and the release of Knox would not be imminent. I have no intention at this point of going point by point through Coulter’s charges, which appear to say something, but hide the real truth. I would rather argue with a 9/11 conspiracy theorist. (Or have dental surgery in Somalia.) There are only so many times I can stand to say the same thing to a stone wall. If you care to see the real facts of the Knox case, visit injusticeinperugia.org.

But what is more striking than Coulter’s incredible ignorance about the case is her startlingly bigoted assessment of anybody who disagrees with her. She leaves the intelligent reader speechless and just a little afraid.

But this shouldn’t surprise us, really. Coulter is becoming a pariah even to conservatives. Until 2001, for instance, Coulter was a columnist for National Review Online, a sharply conservative publication. But she was fired. Why? Jonah Goldberg, editor at large of NRO said at the time; “We did not ‘fire’ Ann for what she wrote…we ended the relationship because she behaved with a total lack of professionalism, friendship and loyalty.”

Coulter’s syndicated column was dropped by the Arizona Daily Star in August 2005, because, “Many readers find her shrill, bombastic and mean-spirited. And those are the words used by readers who identified themselves as conservatives.” It’s not simply the bigotry inherent in her statements that is disturbing. It is the propaganda-like nature of her tactics. Propaganda is defined as “Information of an intentionally misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.” The best propaganda is that which has the ring of truth, but hides the salient facts. In that way, propaganda is like a bikini; what it shows appears to be important. But what it hides is crucial.

In short, propaganda is not defined so much by what it says, as by what it hides. For instance, Coulter never mentions (conveniently) that the prosecutor in the Knox case has been convicted and sentenced to prison for malfeasance, and was under indictment at the time he prosecuted Knox. His crime? The abuse of the rights of innocent suspects and random, vicious threats and accusations. You would think this germane to the conversation, would you not? But Coulter leaves that gem out. As Coulter herself said in 2002, “I don’t pretend to be impartial or balanced….”

Coulter also conveniently omits that the loss of the DNA evidence she blames on American liberals was actually at the hands of court-selected Italian (not Italian-American) DNA scholars designated as independent experts by the Italian judge. The only American officially involved in the case is Amanda Knox.

But still, it is “liberals” who are trying to spring a ‘guilty’ Amanda. As an example; Coulter spews the following; “From Tawana Brawley, Mumia and the Central Park rapists, to the Duke lacrosse players and Karl Rove, liberals are always on the wrong side of a criminal case. A few times could be a coincidence; every time is evidence of a psychological disorder.” Let’s be clear on this; I was outraged by the Brawley lies, I believe Mumia was guilty, and I find justice and immense peace in the fact that murderer Leonard Peltier will die in prison. But I also know from a quarter-century in the FBI that most criminal cases do not split on party lines.

As described in her (eponymous?) book "Demonic," Coulter alleges that“liberals defend the guilty and impugn the innocent not only because they side with barbarians, but because a fair and just system of law challenges their hegemony as judges of the universe.” This hurts me now that I find that I am a liberal. And because I have friends who are liberal. It also hurts me because it’s stupid. It’s a statement that might fit some (on both sides), but as a blanket statement, it is pure bigotry. Not surprising from a woman who famously stated in the British newspaper, “The Guardian,” “[The United States] would be a much better country if women didn’t vote.” Maybe it would be a better country if this particular woman couldn’t communicate.

What Coulter has written bears more similarity to a drive-by shooting than it does to a journalistic endeavor. Denigrating and dehumanizing those who disagree with her is really not original, it was used with flair in the early 1950’s when Senator Joseph McCarthy went on a reactionary rampage using as his antagonist not “liberals” but “communists.” But the methods were the same; if you disagreed with McCarthy, you were obviously a communist. And like McCarthy’s rampage, innocent, real people are getting hurt.

It is to the conservative movement’s shame that they did not ‘self-police’ the problems with Joseph McCarthy. I hope to become a conservative again, notwithstanding Ann Coulter’s permission. But now I know how peaceful Muslims feel about Al Qaeda. If I, as a conservative, stay silent about Coulter and other demagogues, then the ideas in which I truly believe will be viewed not on their merit, but by the people who espouse them. I don’t want people to think of Ann Coulter when they hear the word “conservative” any more than many “liberals” want be defined by Michael Moore (I hope.) I also wish that when people heard the name “Jesus” they didn’t think of politics.

Maybe Coulter’s own words will do the trick. It took Edward R. Murrow, other senators and McCarthy’s own excesses to ruin him. Murrow’s words about McCarthy seem strangely prescient in this instance:

“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men — not from men who feared to write, to associate, to speak and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular.”

Finally though, the most appropriate rebuke for McCarthy, and again, strangely fitting for Coulter, was a moral rebuke, and came from Chief Counsel of the United States Army Joseph Welch during a senate hearing. Welch had recommended a young attorney to work for the very committee that McCarthy was using as a career springboard. But McCarthy found out that the attorney was a member of the “Lawyers Guild,” which McCarthy maintained was a communist front. He then attacked this young attorney in public, not with real facts, but with innuendo, attempting to destroy his career to further his own; a type of political vampirism. Finally, Welch had had enough. With deep emotion, Welch rebuked McCarthy during a hearing in one of the most dramatic moments in congressional history.

“Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty, or your recklessness. Fred Fisher is a young man who went to the Harvard Law School and came into my firm and is starting what looks to be a brilliant career with us…..”

“Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”

Welch speaks eloquently for us today. Until Coulters September 7th article in which she attempts to sacrifice an innocent girl’s future on the altar of the god who would guarantee her own, I had really never gauged her cruelty and her recklessness. Amanda Knox is a fine young woman who was railroaded by a deranged prosecutor in Italy in a failed attempt to save his own career. Ann Coulter is now using that tragedy to further her own career. So now we are left with just one question;

“Have you no decency, Ms. Coulter? At long last, have you no sense of decency?”